Iron Man's Daughter

To Tess, hearing that Stark had been taken hostage had been like hearing that the stock market had dropped a few points. Sure, maybe it would affect her somehow, but he wasn’t anything to her, nor she to him. He was arrogant and rich and stupid. The only way it affected her was that Ms. Potts was having a mental breakdown. She was on the phone every second, pleading, yelling and–after she hung up–crying. Tess tried her hardest to comfort her, but it wasn’t working.

Two months passed and still no word. Tess sat at Tony’s desk in his techy garage, reading a small booklet on how to build a car engine. There were little notes that Tony had scribbled on the pages, telling ways of making improvements, contradicting the author. Ms. Potts stepped inside. She walked over, peeking over Tess’s shoulder.

“Tony’s had that for I don’t know for how long.” A small smile crossed her face before she handed Tess a piece of paper. “Here.”

Tess took the paper and studied it. “What is it?”
Ms. Potts bit her lip. “Its...it’s a DNA test. I sent it through JARVIS’s system.” She took in a deep breath.“It came back positive. I also sent it into a actual lab and I got the same result.”
“My results are always correct and one hundred percent accurate, Ms. Potts,”JARVIS beeped in.

“I know, JARVIS,” Ms. Potts stated.

Tess dropped the paper and looked up at her, quirking her eyebrow. “I’ve been here for two months and you still didn’t believe me?”

“It was cautionary,” the personal assistant said stiffly.

Tess snorted. “Alright. I get ‘cha.” She slapped the pamphlet down on the desk. “So...anything?”

Ms. Potts shook her head and her eyes threatened to spill over. She grabbed the pamphlet from the desk along with several papers and put them back where’d they’d been. Then she began to scramble around, doing the same thing. Even if she didn’t know where it went, she put it somewhere in an orderly place. Tess wondered how she acted a lot like her mother. Her mom had always cleaned to get her mind off stressful things, as did Tess herself. But Tess wasn’t stressed, she wasn’t upset. It wasn’t because she didn’t care if Stark was shot down by Afghans or not, she had a feeling he was still alive.

A man entered the room. He was bald with a bushy grey beard. He faltered when he saw Tess.

“And you are?”he asked, not completely unpleasant.

Tess stood up. “Tess Koscher, sir,”she said and took his outstretched hand.

There was a strange look on the man’s face, before it went to a welcoming smile.“It’s a pleasure,”he smiled. “Obadiah Stane.”

“Obadiah,”Pepper breathed. “Have you got anything?” She looked hopeful.
Obadiah shrugged. “I’m as lost as you are, sweetheart. We don’t even know what they want. They haven’t been in contact or anything. Rhodey’s doing everything he can, but its like Tony’s just disappeared.”

Pepper looked extremely disappointed; Tess felt terrible for her. “Don’t worry.”Obadiah put a hand on Ms. Potts’ shoulder. “Tony’s a touch son of a bitch, he’ll be okay.” There was something in his voice that made Tess think that he didn’t quite believe himself. “But.”He turned to Tess. “If you don’t care me asking, why are you here?”

“Oh...I’m shadowing Ms. Potts.” Tess smiled.

Obadiah nodded and pulled Pepper to the side. “Have you do a background check on her?”he whispered.

Ms. Potts looked almost insulted. “Of course! She’s completely clean. Honestly, Obadiah, I know my job.”

Obadiah looked at her seriously. “I’m just making sure. You can’t be trusting anyone nowadays.” Ms. Potts nodded rigidly. They turned around to Tess who looked to be studying the ceiling rather hard. She looked down at them and smiled. “Just remember what I said,”Obadiah mumbled in Pepper’s ear.

She pursed her lips at him. “Come on, Tess,”she said walking to the door. Tess followed behind obediently. She didn’t like the look Stane gave her.